When she next returned to Florida, it was settled. She had a signed contract to sell her apartment up north. She had lived there for over forty years and the final decision was wrenching despite the fact that she had been contemplating the move with increasing intensity for years.

There was no doubt in her mind that the best years of her life lay before her in Florida with the fey. The inhabitants of the Goddess Garden had been making that clear for a long time. Still, she was a Taurus and forty years in one place was a long time. Just the thought of clearing out the apartment was overwhelming. She used working in the yard to shift her focus from fear to balance.

Because of the leaks in the roof, there were now several pieces of furniture that were water damaged. She officially began the next leg of her journey by deciding to burn them in the fire pit with the yard trash instead of trying to repair them. After several nights of putting pieces of those items into flames born of palm fronds and bouganvillea branches, she realized that the items had come from her childhood home after her mother’s death. She was surfacing remnants of unprocessed grief as end tables from her parents’ living room went up in smoke.

“I need relief from the stress up north,” she thought. “I don’t need more emotional overload.”

“You’re clearing the way for your new start. The more space you make, the more blessings will come to you.”

She accepted the wisdom wearily and tried to disappear into the dancing flames before her. The faeries were pleased but not talking.

A few days before she was scheduled to fly back north and dismantle that chapter of her life, there was a full moon in Leo with a lunar eclipse. She lit the fire pit and positioned her chair to face east, awaiting the rising white globe. It had been cloudy the past few evenings and the bright circle had played peek-a-boo with her as it rose. Tonight the clouds were dissipating and she said Thank You as the orb ascended the darkening sky.

A storm had blown through and the wind still churned the trees in the yard. The large oak in front of her began to sparkle as the rising moon gleamed off the shiny, dancing leaves. She thought of the ancient oracles that spoke to people through the rustling of leaves and listened carefully. She sensed a growing serenity but heard no words.

As the moon achieved dominance in the black sky before her, she noticed that it’s light was dancing in the palm tree at the edge of the patio. As the fronds blew in the wind, the sparkling white exploded off of them like fireworks. Then the energy seemed to concentrate in the center of the palm. She knew she was being called. She returned her attention to the dancing flames before her. She placed her awareness in the center of the fire pit and allowed the rising heat to carry her upward. Suddenly she was dancing on the top of the palm tree as the sparkling fronds waved around her. Next her attention was directed to the starry sky above the sparkling palm tree — and then she was gone.

When she finally returned to the patio, she brought no conscious thoughts with her but she understood that she had been initiated into her new life. Everything was different but nothing had changed.

As she sat listening for instructions and explanations, a quiet male energy appeared on the other side of the fire pit. He seemed glad to be there but uncertain about what was happening. She offered him the chair which had appeared next to her and he made his way around the fire pit and sat down. She held out her hand for him to take but he didn’t respond.

“He’s out of body from the physical plane and not used to traveling in the astral realm in this lifetime,” was the thought that came to her. Still she couldn’t help but wonder if he really wanted to be there. The faeries laughed quietly together as the thought went through her head. She returned her attention to the dancing flames as he sat, somewhat disconnected, beside her. She tried to get him to watch the living magic before them and he seemed to respond as exhaustion settled over her.

She watched the flames die down to barely glowing embers and then she went inside to make some dinner and get ready for bed. What had been started that night was the beginning of a lengthy new chapter in her physical plane life. But she was too tired to think about that. Before she could begin her new life in the Goddess Garden she had to write the final chapter of her old life.

It’s been a long time since I updated you about the Goddess Garden and its surrounding plant beds. My life has been complicated for awhile and the Garden e-Diary is one of the things that fell by the wayside. I’m in the process of reorganizing now and trying to get back on track with some of the things I have neglected.

The bougainvillea I planted in the center of the front bed is thriving and blooming happily. The oleander that I divided and replanted in the hexagonal beds on either side of the bougainvillea is doing well also.

In addition to being winter, we’ve had mostly dry conditions in Bradenton for the past few months. Some of my plants are struggling BUT, of course, the weeds are proliferating. The Mango Bed at the west end of the front bed is a good example. I weeded it throughly before I left town on Thanksgiving. It was overgrown again when I returned.

I managed to make time to weed it again before I left town, carefully pulling weeds around the ornamental peanut vines that are meant to be ground cover. The peanut vine has thinned considerable with the drought conditions, but is spreading at the same time. I’m hoping for it to really take over this next growing season. I also trimmed the tips off the little mango tree to encourage it to bush rather than sprawl. I added additional mulch in between the plants I’m trying to encourage (after I took the photo below).

I got the weeds back under basic control before I left town. I will be spending more time at the Florida center this spring and hope to really get things shaped up. I will keep you posted!

I planted a small Blue Daze at the front of Goddess Garden about a year ago. When I got back to town this time, it was almost a goner. I started watering it every morning and slowly it began producing new leaves. This morning it surprised me with SIX little blue flowers!

Six is the number of serenity. Blue flowers are said to be miraculous. I’ve been feeling a lot of stress since I’ve been back because it seems like there is more that needs done can I can manage, and I’ve been telling the guides and the faeries that I need a miracle. It looks like one is on the way. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

When I got back to Florida, I was greeted by the faeries and Mr. Beyer’s bright pink lilies. It was a nice welcome home.

There were also lots of the little bushes of white flowers that the butterflies and honey bees love. I call them wildflowers. Most Floridians refer to them as weeds. I’ve been pulling them out of the flower beds and yard since I got here, leaving a few clusters here and there for the bees.

I planted five little palm tree sprouts when I was here last time and they seemed to be off to a good start. Only two of them survived the dry spell without me, however. Fortunately, there are plenty of new sprouts around the yard thanks to our industrious squirrel population. I’ve transplanted three new ones so far.

I also divided the old oleander in the front bed and planted half of it in the spot where the newer one used to be. That one was killed by the drug dealers with transmission fluid, you remember. We’ll hope they leave this one alone.

The original oleander is thirty years old, but I trimmed it up and we’ll see if it has a few more years left in it. It’s an original old Florida version, the kind that makes seed pods, not a newer hybrid. I’m hoping I can salvage both chunks of it.

On Friday, I realized that the dead foliage on the Sabal Palm at the back of the property was a fire hazard with everything so dry. I headed back to clean it up and discovered that someone had attached a chicken coop to my back fence.

And they bent the fence rail to do it.
I knew the faeries were a bit out of sorts when I arrived but I was too tired and busy to think about why. Now I know what they are upset about. Aside from the vandalism to my fence, and the obvious health hazards, these poor birds are out in that cage in 90° heat!!! I cleared the tinder from my palm tree and went back to pulling weeds in the front bed. Gardening is supposed to be relaxing, isn’t it?

After spending late spring and early summer up north working and problem solving, she returned to the Goddess Garden exhausted, confused, and disheartened. The faeries seemed to barely notice her return. She could feel their busy hum throughout the yard but they were submerged in the energies from the other realms.

She sat inside the screen porch next to the house the first night surveying the mess that had been waiting for her. The yard was in the worse shape it ever had been in. Because the local drug dealers had started letting their pitbulls run loose in the neighborhood again (as part of their latest harassment escalation), she was afraid of being sued if someone was bitten on her property and had stopped having the grass cut. She was replacing the lawn with an extensive landscape project. Raised flower beds would curve around the property and a tree-lined “country lane” would wind across the whole yard next to a dry river bed that would provide extra drainage in heavy rains. It was an ambitious plan and there had been much left to be done when she last left town. She had sprayed an herbicide on the areas of grass that hadn’t been dug up to kill it while she was away. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked, at least not for long.

Early the next morning, she put on work clothes and went to work with shovel, rake, and clippers. The temperature was in the high 90’s with humidity to match. She took frequent breaks but managed to put in at least five hours almost every day, digging, pulling weeds, and pruning. Then a lengthy spell of heavy rain moved in. The yard was underwater for days at a time. Still, she would wade out to high ground and pull weeds furiously.

She was so consumed by the arduous work that she almost forgot about the faeries. Then one day she noticed that pink flowers had started to bloom all over the yard. The pink-tinged bougainvillea around the outer wall of the Goddess Garden seemed to blossom overnight. The little wild lily she had found in the yard and replanted next to the screen porch was suddenly full of little pink star-like blooms. Next the large pink lilies she had planted across the front of the yard began to bloom again. They had bloomed full force when she was there in the spring and should have been done for the year, but one after another they kept sending up stalks which opened into bright pink trumpets. Finally it dawned on her that the fey folk were letting her know that they were there with her, helping as best they could. Her burden lightened as she began to feel them beside her when she worked.

Then one afternoon she began weeding a large elevated bed where she had planted three jacaranda trees with rows of small cuttings in between them. The trees were thriving but the cuttings had been eaten up by the weeds that took over while she was away—or so she thought. As she yanked the overgrowth out of the bed she suddenly realized that a lot of the cuttings were alive and well under the weeds. As she carefully pulled the weeds away uncovering more and more of the cuttings, she began to hear the small faeries clapping cheerfully. “We told them you’d be back to save them,” they sang. “We told them not to give up.”

That night she sat on the front patio with a glass of wine, despite the noise from the drug related businesses (working well past the hour when they were supposed to stop) and despite the glare from the rows of bright fluorescent lights which now lit up the building next door and flooded the stars out of the night sky. She let her weariness (and the wine) overtake her as she thought about where she would begin her work in the morning.

She was sinking into the weight of her tired body and the heavy fog that had begun to fill her brain when she became aware of a large figure moving slowly in her direction. She focused on the figure and began to see the blurry image of a women dressed in a flowing white dress. The Lady in White was clearly there for her, but made no direct contact as she moved gracefully around the the patio. The flowing movement filled the area with a powerful energy as she moved. There was something important happening but the Lady in White gave no clue as to what it was. Eventually the Lady in White faded away without communicating anything but her presence.

A special blessing had settled over the garden and its creator. The moon rose majestically as if to confirm the power of the occurrence. The scent of flowers wafted through the yard.

Then the sound of car engines and noisy tools came back into her consciousness. Still, something was different. But what?

MESSAGE FROM THE GUIDES
This week begins a new cycle of growth and prosperity. Let go of limitations and expect abundance. Be generous. Be grateful. What you focus on will be magnified and multiplied. Don’t waste this time on revenge. Your dream life is waiting if you seize the opportunity to move forward.

I’ve been struggling to get my life reorganized since I got back to New York. I finally, just his morning, finished my next column for Retailing Insight and emailed it to my editor. Now I’m returning to my personal websites. Over the next week, I’ll try and recap my progress in the Goddess Garden during the last few months for you.

Let’s ease into it with the latest on the Mango Bed. After a thorough weeding, it didn’t take the weeds long to reestablish themselves. This is what it looked like on September 20, 2015.

I was working five to eight hours a day trying to get my yard shaped up. The Mango Bed was way down the list of priorities. Still it was gnawing at me, probably because it was the one small space that I thought I had gotten under control. I managed to divert enough time to it that by September 22 it was back in decent shape again.

By the time I left town, the weeds were making their presence known, but it was too late to do anything more about it. I’m hoping they won’t completely takeover again while I’m out of town.

Both yards were still under water yesterday. We had more rain Thursday than I realized.

The four-foot deep trench I dug along the west side the property to try and keep the carport from flooding is still full of water this morning.

Yesterday there was water on both sides of the driveways on both properties. Progress on my landscape project once again was delayed.

I am digging a trench across both yards to make a place for all this water to go. When it’s not flooding it will be a dry creek bed running along my curved pathway. Last week the weed growth became an issue so I had to stop work on the trench and focus on appearance rather than infrastructure. Still, I think the work I’ve gotten done to date made a difference. The driveway on the west property was not under water for 2 – 3 days as it was the last three times we had heavy rainfall.

As usual,the fairies cheered me on. These lilies were a blaze of color across the front beds three months ago. Last week, two of them popped up unexpectedly to let me know the nature spirits were happy with my progress in their yard.

I was out in the yard and working by 9:00 am this morning. It was already drizzling slightly but I kept at it until 11:00 am when it became a steady downpour and pools of water began to collect in the yard. My shoes were damp but I didn’t want them to become completely soaked.

I’m working on the edges of the driveways on both properties since those are the areas that are most visible from the street. During the recent serious flooding, I worked in the raised beds across the front of the yards because that was dry land. The weeds still grew faster than I could deal with them but I did get large sections cleared and looking spiffy. Summers in Florida aren’t easy.

The Mango Bed was in really good shape a few weeks ago.

Then I turned my back on it and this is what happened.

The battle is never ending!
Stamina is required.
Courage in the face of unrelenting whittling-away-at.
Just when I think I can’t go on anymore, the fairies send me a present from the nature world.

Between flooding in my yard, drug dealer harassment, and a friend who almost died, I’m struggling to keep myself together. (Not whining, just reporting.)

The yard has flooded three times now. I kept hoping that it would drown the weeds but, to the contrary, it kept me away from them for the better part of a week each time while they grew faster and faster.

The good news is that no more dead animals have been left in my yard. The bad news is that someone (?!) called Code Enforcement and told them that I was building along the back of the property without a permit. What I was doing on the back of the property was digging my bougainvilla out from under the potato vines that grew over the fence from the overgrown vacant lot behind me.

But that’s a never-ending tale. Let me tell you the more interesting saga of the The Little Bougainvilla Who Could.

I planted him, front and center on the property line, to try and mask the mess across the street. This is what he looked like in November 2012.

I kept asking him to grow thick and tall, along with the oleanders on each side of him, to give me something beautiful to look out on. This is what he looked like in April 2013.

Even when the oleander to his east was killed with used transmission fluid, he kept his will to live.

When I left in May, this is what he looked like.

When I returned in July, this was his appearance.

He seems to have thrived on our recent flooding rains, even though bougainvillea traditionally don’t like to have “wet feet”.

Finally! He got big enough to mask the tow truck parked across the street.